Game: Ur: 1830 BC

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henk.rolleman — 2007-12-11T21:51:44+00:00

Close Up from Ashur

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henk.rolleman — 2007-08-23T11:44:50+00:00

Components

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henk.rolleman — 2007-08-22T15:21:06+00:00

Where the river flows there is fortune

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henk.rolleman — 2007-08-22T15:20:06+00:00

Side box discription of the game

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henk.rolleman — 2007-08-22T15:18:53+00:00

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henk.rolleman — 2007-08-22T15:18:51+00:00

Side box

Thread: Searching for the Dutch Rules?

henk.rolleman — 2007-08-20T19:56:18+00:00

Does anyone have a copy of the Dutch rules manual?
I tried www.Splotter.nl but no response yet.

Thread: First play for six players

JadedGamer — 2006-11-28T21:35:14+00:00

I have joined a group of players who play on Sundays, and for the first meeting I brought Ur 1830 BC. The others were interested (four were 18xx players), and since we were six (one too many for Leonardo, which was the option) the decision was made to try it.

This was the first time any of us had played it, but I had read the rules two or three times. (I still missed out a couple, which were cleared up as we played - those were caught by the 1830 vets.)

Minor nations were sold off

The first round's settlement phase started with the negotiations that would dominate the game. Two players decided to try and fire up cheap (lots of desert) Babylon because of all the city hexes, while two others started up in the more expensive mountains and forests of Urartu. Babylon ended up buying the first waterworks and got the first income.

However, once Urartu was activated, that nation had access to bigger reservoirs and in the rounds that followed, the river that had fed Babylon started drying up as the 4-reservoirs of sucked up much of it. Babylon solved this by building a 4-reservoir in the hex where the three rivers merge, and built canals from there.

Once all land in the two initial kingdoms had been sold, the next nation to start was Sumer, where I had patiently been digging canals with Eridu's built-in crew. We were now entering the 3rd age, so we bought the first 6-capacity reservoir and could irrigate with all six, still leaving enough for our southern brethren. But a few turns later someone started up Elam, irrigating the two plots necessary to make us consume all the water and thus ending the game with a invasion from the off-board southern peoples.

The winners were those who had the (now high-priced) lands in Urartu, i.e. mountains and forests.

(Me? I lost heavily, of course, which I usually do when I play. I bought Eridu expensively for 200 (of 300) and the desert city in Sumer, then waited half the game before that nation "started". So the only income I had was the 35 per turn from my minor nation, as I used the card's power to dig my dry canals while the others created nations. I probably should have used Eridu to help Babylon and bought land there instead.)

Some points we noted:

- When the game was over, everyone agreed Elam would have been a better starting nation than Babylon; its land is as cheap, but it can draw water from the beginning of a river instead of the end of one as in the case of Babylon. Thus it would be irrigated the whole game.

- Babylon and Sumer suffer from being downstream. This is somewhat balanced by the cheaper land, but if the game lasts a while and people build large reservoirs further upstream, those nations are going to mostly "die out" in the late game.

- We all agreed it was a short, playable 1830 variant. We finished after exactly four hours (box says 3-4 hours), but that included rules explanations and a LOT of negotiation.

- The land prices of mountains and forests were driven up by all the irrigation that took place in Urartu. This also meant that the major land owners there won the game since people generally didn't have too much cash otherwise. With very little land-selling, land prices rarely went down to compensate.

- The game ships with too few 10-notes. We spent a lot of time exchanging 10s for other denominations (read: 50s). Conversely, there were too many 5s compared to the need.

- The game ends rather quickly if nations start building reservoirs after where the rivers merge. To make the game last long enough to reach the higher ages (8- and M-reservoirs), you probably need to let one river run at least some of its water south (by e.g. tearing down a reservoir ie. make a nation keep income).

- There was very little land sale going on: Mostly one of the Urartu settlers sold his free "First Akkadians" forests to dump the price so he could buy more land in Urartu, but that was about it.

- As 1830 players usually do, we had a lot of open strategy discussions. Usually between the land owners in a nation during the development phase when deciding what to buy and where to dig.

- We had a really good time playing it.

Thread: Re: State Treasuries

bucklen_uk — 2006-11-07T15:18:14+00:00

Sure, States have Treasuries and it's important you keep them seperate from player treasuries.

English rules - p3 Note on Treasuries.

When you buy new land money goes to the state (previously sold land has flipped over counters and the money goes to the bank).

If you have a state with insufficient treasury to buy a digging team (after an era change) you have to buy one from your own treasury (Revolution - p11).

When you harvest - the King chooses to distribute the harvest or keep it, if it's kept then a waterworks (lowest number) has to be removed.

It's similar to 18xx games - company gets capital when shares are bought (here it's states and lands) and when the company operates either you take in (keep harvest) or payout (distribute).

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Werbaer — 2006-10-25T12:07:45+00:00

better image of the box cover

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Maeglor — 2006-10-07T23:05:10+00:00

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Maeglor — 2006-10-07T23:04:50+00:00

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Maeglor — 2006-10-07T23:04:45+00:00

Thread: State Treasuries

Hopalong — 2006-06-25T18:07:17+00:00

We may have overlooked something with this, but when we tried to play this recently, we got as far as forming states, and then abandoned the game as we could see no way forward. We wondered if states get a treasury like railway companies do in 18xx games. As private treasury cannot be used to buy reservoirs, pumps and digging crews, just how is a state supposed to begin irrigating land so that it can make money ? Also, if a state keeps all the money it makes, it has to lose a pump, so again, how is it supposed to make money? No doubt the answer is there, but we couldn't see it...

Thread: Re:English Rules?

mrocci — 2005-02-19T10:36:28+00:00

I just found a sealed copy of UR for a reasonable price here in Italy... but I have the same problem. Could you help me too?

Thread: Re:English Rules?

jmdsplotter — 2004-11-02T16:06:31+00:00

100%Blade (#63143),

Yes :-).

See email.

Thread: English Rules?

100%Blade — 2004-11-02T08:05:38+00:00

I picked this up at Essen and was surprised that it had not English rules. Anyone out there got a translation?
Thanks
Michael

Thread: Re:General Comment

vynd — 2004-04-26T16:15:49+00:00

The first time my friends and I played this we managed to get into the M-class (highest value) cards before theg ame ended. But when we played for a second time and had a better idea what we are doing, we also used up all of the water before half the cards were gone (actually, on the same turn that the first 3 card was purchased). I've talked with some other people who have played this and they had the same experience. So it seems like there isn't really as much water available as there should be. Of course that's easy enough to fix by just playing with, say 8 water per stream to start with and going up from there.

An annoying thing about this game is that there aren't enough of the smaller denomination bills. There can't be more than 20 $10, for instance, and thus we were running out of them not just every turn, but sometimes running out, turning some in for larger bills, and then promptly handing them all back out again.

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

As an alternative to drawing the canals onto the board we painted some craft matchsticks blue and these work very well as canals. We do seem to run out of water before we are halfway through the cards though. Has anyone else found this? We set up and played a two player game and the system seemed to work well.

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Introductory thoughts after a single play. Not 18xx long, but still too long for my desire (4ish hours). Most importantly, the game mechanism is wildly confusing at first. Scoring is non-intuitive (at least as far as 18xx goes). The board is cool, and the game looks good as it plays (which is important to me). I will be willing to play it again, but I'm not confident that I will like it enough to play after that.

Thread: User Review

BoardGameGeek — 2001-12-16T22:41:51+00:00

More than a comment, perhaps not quite a review, but here you go

After one play, I was quite enthusiastic about this new game from Splotter. The second play has dampened my enthusiasm a bit. It's still quite a neat game, but it seems to still suffer from one of the major problems that plagues the 1830 branch of the 18xx family tree: the presidents ("Kings") have far too much power. For much of the game, the personal payouts are more significant that the "dividends", and the Kings dictate who gets them. The "loot & dump" is still a big part of the strategy of the game, and being a minority stakeholder can be quite perilous. All in all, being a King is more important than in 1830, and yet because only one or two Kingdoms will emerge at start, the risk is forced upon several players by the game and the advantages handed out somewhat arbitrarily. Ur also has one of the failings of the 1835 branch of the tree - the forced development order. In this case, you are more or less obliged to work your way north, as only the few southern kingdoms are viable early, as the northern ones are too expensive.

The game does have some neat strengths, mainly packing a lot of the appeal of 1830 into smaller package - only about 3 hours, at least for people who are somewhat familiar with 1830. The tedium of tracking and counting late-game runs in 1830 has been eliminated, always a plus. Also, one of the problems in 1830 was that the companies were rather strictly ordered: the B&O was better than the C&O which was better than the NYNH&H, and since it was basically a game about owning railroards, getting the better companies was a crucial aspect of the game. In Ur, the Kingdoms really have relatively little to differentiate them, as anyone can operate anywhere, so getting the right Kingdom is not that big a deal (and since there is no moving assets between Kingdoms, one is all you'll need unless you do the loot & dump thing). This last strength of the Ur: 1830BC was what intigued me the most, as it had the possibility to bypass one of 1830's only significant problems. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough.

Anyway, like Roads & Boats I had very high hopes for the game after one play, but after more experience I think it'll end up as a decent middle-tier offering, appealing because it has significantly involving play at a level of time investment that is doable in less than an evening, at least with the right crowd. This is not to be understated, but in the end I think it's another game that had greatness within it's grasp, but couldn't quite go the extra mile to achieve it.

Thread: Preview

BoardGameGeek — 2001-10-12T17:39:37+00:00

Like 1830, Ur is played in three main phases. In the first phase, players can buy and sell shares in a country. In the second phase these countries build irrigation channels on the map. In the third phase water runs through these channels, this provides money for the players and the countries which can be used in the next round for further actions. At the start of the game, six minor countries are auctioned off which perform special actions and supply some extra cash for the players. During the game these minors can be sold off to major countries.

From this description it may seem like a clone of 1830 with a different theme pasted upon it, luckily it isn't.

The first difference from 1830 is the fact that a player buys shares in a country by buying an actual hex in the country. These hexes come in four flavors of increasing basic value: desert, savannah, forest and mountain. The price of a hextype decreases if one of it's type is sold and increases if certain areas of this type are irrigated. The map is very cleverly designed: three rivers flow downstream and join somewhere on the map, the cheaper hexes are located downstream and will usually be sold first. When more money becomes available, players will buy the more expensive upstream hexes. Since there is only a limited amount of water available, irrigating upstream hexes can cause the downstream countries to run dry and go broke.

When a certain amount of hexes in a country are sold then this country can start building irrigation. How things are built is decided by King, the player with a majority interest in that country. Irrigation may be built wherever the country wants, although it usually will only irrigate it's own holdings because the player gains a bonus if a hex is irrigated.

To irrigate hexes, three components are necessary: diggers, reservoirs and pumps. Diggers create the channels. Reservoirs are placed in river hexes and dictate how much water is redirected towards the channel. Pumps dictate the maximum distance water can run through the channels.
Unlike 1830, channels are not placed by laying tiles on the map; instead an erasable blue marker is used. Reservoirs and pumps are represented by a counter in the colour of the country.
These three components are bought by the countries from the bank and increase in capacity throughout the game. With the capacity increase there is big increase in price, and when a certain capacity has been reached, the older diggers will be phased out. Because every country is required to own at least one digger, it may happen that it is required to buy a very expensive new digger because the old ones have been removed from play. If a country cannot afford a new digger, the king will have to pay for it from his personal treasury.

After all companies have performed their actions the rainy season starts. In this phase water runs through the three rivers, fills up the reservoirs, runs through the channels and irrigates the hexes. There is a certain amount of water every round, represented by wooden chits. Every time a hex is irrigated, a chit is left on it. If all water from a river is used upstream then there is no water left for irrigation downstream. If no water at all reaches the end of the map, the game ends because off-map downstream kingdoms attack the players for stealing their water.
Kingdoms get money for every hex irrigated and can decide to pay this money to their landowners or keep the money for itself. If the money is kept, the kingdom has to destroy one of it's reservoirs or pumps. I found this a bit harsh: if a country expects to need a new digger soon, it cannot keep it's income without destroying part of it's essential infrastructure in the process. Proper planning will hopefully prevent this problem.

After this phase, the next round starts with a new acquisition round for the players.

Ur 1830 BC is not your average 'German game'. It cannot be taught in 15 minutes or played in 90 minutes. It is however a lot of fun, offers a lot of player interaction and plenty of chances to stab your opponents in the back. There is no luck in this game, but finding the right moment to sell your holdings may require a lot of intuition. Splotter themselves describe this game as a 1830/Roads and Boats hybrid. I mostly agree, although Ur requires lot less micro-management than R&B, which is a Good Thing in my book.